This invention relates to making electrical connections between electrical contacts of a first substrate and electrical contacts of a second substrate.
Ball grid array (BGA) and land grid array (LGA) integrated circuit (IC) packages are becoming increasingly popular. With a BGA package, for example, the rounded solder balls of the BGA are generally soldered directly to corresponding surface mount pads of a printed circuit board rather than to plated thru-holes which receive pins from, for example, a pin grid array (PGA) package. BGA packages are advantageous due to the ability to provide a high density of connections and low profiles. In addition, BGAs, with their very short distance between the package and the printed circuit board, have low inductances and therefore have far superior electrical performance relative to leaded devices. Once soldered to a printed circuit board, however, BGAs are difficult to replace or interchange.
Intercoupling components are used to allow particular IC packages to be reliably interchanged without permanent connection to a printed circuit board. More recently, adaptors for use with BGA and LGA packages have been developed to allow these packages to be non-permanently connected (e.g., for testing) to a printed circuit board.